Posted
by
timothy
on Sunday December 04, 2011 @12:36PM
from the is-turnabout-fair-play? dept.

mrquagmire submits a link to the Jerusalem Post's report that an American reconnaissance UAV has been captured by the Iranian military. "'Iran's military has downed an intruding RQ-170 American drone in eastern Iran,' Iran's Arabic-language Al Alam state television network quoted the unnamed source as saying. 'The spy drone, which has been downed with little damage, was seized by the Iranian armed forces.' ... 'The Iranian military's response to the American spy drone's violation of our airspace will not be limited to Iran's borders any more,' Iran's Arabic language Al Alam television quoted the military source as saying, without giving details."

It was US that violated Iran's airspace. They have every right to shoot it down. It happens frequently with my country too and they never do anything about it - they just go "yes, we will demand answers from the this time, honestly we promise!". Kudos to Iran for taking a stance.

Allegedly. Given the amount of evidence and the history of the regime (last time they made this claim they backed off it) I'm skeptical. It wouldn't really surprise me either way. Iran was putting their equivalent of a drone into Iraq while US forces were there. Maybe they're just returning the favor.

The UK embassy invasion was in reponse to the sanctions the UK recently placed on Iran. Iran had voted to expell the UK ambassador [yahoo.com] last week. Imo the embassy invasion could have been orchestrated by the more hard line factions of their political system to ensure there is no back down from the resolution.
Regarding the blowing up of the missile base, that would (imo) more than likely be by saboteurs - the US has declared (Mr Bush (Jr), continued by Mr. Obama) that they will fund and assist dissidents [usatoday.com]. Alt

Of course they do. But when you look at the satellite before and after images widely published on the web you see three different buildings in separate areas of the base taken out with other buildings between them left standing. The damage looks like James Bond work as opposed to an airstrike or drone strike.

Allegedly. Given the amount of evidence and the history of the regime (last time they made this claim they backed off it) I'm skeptical. It wouldn't really surprise me either way. Iran was putting their equivalent of a drone into Iraq while US forces were there. Maybe they're just returning the favor.

Given this is a mid-altitude drone (50K feet) which has significant lack of stealth technology, about which Wikipedia [wikipedia.org] says:

Aviation Week postulates that these design elements suggest the designers have avoided 'highly sensitive technologies' due to the near certainty of eventual operational loss inherent with a single engine design and a desire to avoid the risk of compromising leading edge technology

the shoot down is entirely plausible, and could easily be accomplished with what ever operational missiles or even manned fighter aircraft the Iranian's have in operation. An unmasked exhaust makes this drone vulnerable to heat seeker missiles.

At 6 million per copy, they are relatively cheap, and containing nothing particularly secret, it may even have been used as cover decoy for a much more expensive and more capable vehicle on a concurrent mission.

A aerial reconnaissance is not an attack, much less a first strike by any definition.Sure it's pisses off the target, and is subject to being shot down, but nobody considers it an act of war, that takes killing somebody or capturing/taking something/somewhere.For that matter, until either the other side admits to losing the drone, or Iran coughs it up to a recognized 3rd party, like the UN for example, it's just propaganda on Irans part. I've seen the B.S. propaganda countries will say in an attempt to gain leverage. Remember the whole USA bombing Libya back in the 80s? I remember them showing an "unexploded bomb" that was actually only part of a high drag fin that wasn't even used in that operation. They also claimed bombing of civilian neighborhoods and showed photos of an area covered with potholes, but the bombs the USA used were larger than most of the potholes themselves and would have leveled the area instead of making potholes. Those holes, if they were caused during that incident, would have been from their own SAM falling down on the city due to stupidity in both the shooters (don't shoot into your own city), and the missile designers (on a miss, it should have self destructed).

I don't care what side you want to take (or not), but when it comes to countries and their propensity for propaganda, don't believe word of mouth, demand proof.(Something which the article doesn't provide any of.)

why Iran has been taking the ones destroyed over iraq and afghanistan apart for years.

Indeed most of the technical hacks(like the discovery of taliban troops with tv's capable of receiving drone transmissions are done by iranians.

However Iran has several times in the past claimed to have shot down a drone in their airspace, and not once have they actually shown the crash site. just parts. Parts from drones shot down over other countries.

It's also as though someone wants to prevent a full-out shooting or nuclear war. Israel is taking a more and more hostile stance towards Iran. There are stories leaking about how the Israelis are going to attack Iran without US permission. If you were the US, you have to talk the Israelis off the ledge. So what do you do? You have to do what you did in the First Gulf War to stop the Israelis from coming into the war: hunt Scuds and do other shit to show them that you're providing an alternative. Israeli isn't going to let Iran get nukes. They will do anything to stop that, including a shooting war. Crippling Iran's nuclear capabilities in a backdoor way (I mean, Stuxnet was awesome, right?!) delays that war.

So the CIA is not assassinating the religious fanatics who are making Iran shitty in the first place, but assassinating Iran's rational, secular thinkers?

RATIONAL secular thinkers would not be arming religious fanatics with nuclear weapons.

Scientists (engaged in nuclear research) are hard to grow.

Radical religious fanatics require no education, and can be recreated virtually overnight.

One would have thought that religious fanatics willing to blow them selves up would be just about exhausted and cleaned from the gene pool by now even in a depressing society with a horrible economy. Yet such is not the case. There is no point in taking out fanatics. You can't win that way. You need to turn them against each other, and remove any means of acquiring weapons of mass destruction.

Pre Iraq, the Muslim world was united, Muslims would never attach Muslims, and attacking a Mosque was unthinkable. Now they are at each others throats and bombing each other's Mosques. ”Such subtlety . . . ” said Slartibartfast, ”one has to admire it.”.

A aerial reconnaissance is not an attack, much less a first strike by any definition.

Try to imagine the roles reversed for a minute:

Iran has a large and powerful military with the latest high tech weapons, and could crush the US in a matter of weeks. Iranian politicians talk openly about the possibility of military strikes or invasion, and Iran is constantly spying on the US with satellites, drones and operatives on the ground. Iran invaded Canada on a lie and effected "regime change", and furthermore is widely seen in the west as being at war with Christianity and the American way of life. Mexico has nuclear weapons and is good friend of Iran, and is waging an active cold war against the US.

Iran is doing everything it can to prevent the US getting nuclear power or weapons. The US is determined to get nuclear weapons because they are the one thing that will definitely prevent Iran from invading, and to develop ICBMs to deliver them to Iranian soil and guarantee Mutually Assured Destruction. Iran keeps bringing new sanctions against the US via the UN, and ordinary US citizens are suffering because of it.

Maybe you can start to understand why Iran behaves the way it does, and why the actions of the US and Israel are just making the situation worse.

Iran has a history of expandable borders when they want something that's just slightly over the border. Very much like North Korea in that respect. It's definitely possible that the drone was in their airspace, but it's also possible that there was no drone or that it wasn't in their airspace. Given the credibility that Iran has, I wouldn't necessarily assume that they're being above the board without more information.

Iran "has a history of expandable borders", when?! Please provide some details.

As far as I know, Iran was attacked by Saddam Hussein and that is their latest war. The modern Iran has not been around for very long, you know, less than a century. Before the former shah's Iran it was a European protectorate of sorts. Around 1980, the mullah's took over ruined most of what was available at that time.

Yes, fortunately for us on our moral high-ground, Iran and North Korea are the only nations that have a history of territorial ambitions. The United States would never do something [wikipedia.org] like that [wikipedia.org]. Neither would Britain. [wikipedia.org]

I assumed the OP was alluding to the past, since he used that "history" word. But if you want to talk about now, please do so.... how exactly has Iran tried to "expand its borders" in the last couple of years? I really would like to know. As far as I can see (and contrary to the images portrayed by some Western media) the Iranian government hasn't invaded anyone, hasn't "settled" or captured any land, and has in fact been praised by the governments of Afghanistan and Iraq for being a good and helpful neighbor.

The government of Iran were also a major regional enemy of the Taliban - after declaring opium unlawful, the Iranian government eradicated the domestic trade in 18 months, and started fighting the Taliban smugglers [mondediplo.com] who use Iran as a transit route to Europe. Three Iranian security agents are killed every day in this "war"; the total killed numbers in the thousands, and they almost went to war with the Taliban [wikipedia.org] when they governed Afghanistan. This is something that our media forget to mention when they try to to convince us that Iran is the bad guy allied with Al-Qaeda and the Taliban.

I am no apologist for the Iranian government. From our liberal west point of view, we may not like the religious society that they want to create, but compared to ourselves their territorial ambitions seem to have been remarkably limited. Are they the ones that have invaded our neighbors? Are they the ones with soldiers deployed along our borders? Are they the ones constantly meddling in the politics of north America or Europe? Did they ever overthrow a western government and install a dictator? No. And yet, we have done all of these things to them. No wonder they dislike us.

Disagreeing with a government is not a reason to go to war:

"Old men declare war because they have failed to solve complex political and economic problems."

"War is the most striking instance of the failure of intelligence to master the problem of human relationships."

Citation? Iraq tried expanding their border by taking Iranian territory, I don't know any instance where Iran tried to expand their border, I also do not know of any case where Iran has claimed their border extended further than it does (this includes the British naval incident and the hikers - I do not believe they were spies but they were in Iranian territory and Iran got some propaganda for home consumption).

Nato has released a statement informing us that they "lost control" of a drone over the weeken

Not really. The US has been flying manned combat aircraft into Iran for several years probing air defences. My Persian cooworkers have a social app that tracks when people on the ground see the planes, I don't speak farsi (or understand the language) so I can't point you at it unfortunately. Searches for USAF probing iranian air defences gives some results along these lines.

The US is trying to fly as deep into Iran as they can before all the air defence sites 'light up', they're trying to locate all the air defence radars etc. It's illegal, but it's been going on for years, and everyone knows the game, the americans pretend 'this time is the time' they're going to attack natanz etc. and the Iranians call their bluff. Presumably one of these days the Israeli's or someone else will take this data and go after air defence sites along with the nuclear facilities but who knows.

This also isn't the first time that they've shot down a drone. I imagine that they make a big deal about this in part because they can't do much about U-2 overflights, and in part because it validates the government's rhetoric about how the whole world (except maybe Syria) is out to get Iran. Shooting down a drone is not terribly difficult.

Maybe someone can explain the whole U2 thing to me, because i just don't get it. I mean here is a tech invented in...what? 1958? Why hasn't anyone figured out how to swat those thing down like gnats already? i mean i could at least understand the SR71 blackbird as literally by the time you knew the thing was headed your way it was already gone. But the U2 ain't that fast and if the Ruskies were able to shoot down Powers why hasn't everyone else been knocking those things down?

It was invented to go up against USSR, who eventually were able to down one. Against superpower military spending, the U2 is vulnerable. But it flys really high, so it takes some serious engineering skill just to design a weapon that can even reach it's height, let alone accurately kill one.

Those resources are not available to lesser militaries, at least not yet, and there will always be nations for whom high altitude overflight is still safe. Loiter time and distance (high altitude is still way, way, way closer than satellite) mean that the U2 is still an extremely cost effective surveillance platoform and is likely to remain so for some time against many targets. Further, unlike satellites, the U2 can be flown at arbitrary times, rather than on a regular and predictable schedule.

If they had an S-400, yes. Russia is hesitant about supplying them to most countries. Even its own backyard allies like Belarus aren't trusted with them. Russia recently canceled an order from Iran for an older S-300 system, and even China doesn't get full documentation on the system despite being one of the bigger customers.

America has been probing enemy air defenses since the Cold War. Operation Home Run was one in a series of operations that sent bombers stuffed with electronics into Russian territory to sniff where the defense radars were. At first, the bombers had to fly in international waters. But then the Russians would simply refuse to turn on all their radars to prevent their detection. Therefore, the US started to have their bombers suddenly divert into Russian airspace at a mad dash, which forced them to turn on the

Additionally, the technical specs of the radar systems are already known, because Russia probably makes the systems and American intelligence has the instruction manual.

Knowing the frequencies and techniques of the enemy radar is enough to build an operational flight program for our countermeasures to jam it. I'm pretty sure that it's in our best interests to jam and/or deceive the radars rather than deliberately "light them up" before we strike. I know because I was an avionics troop in the USAF, specializing in electronic warfare (TISS).

Lastly, though, I want to say that all this rhetoric in favor of war with Iran being shoved up our asses is disgusting. With public approval of government at an all-time low and protests in every major city, it is clear that the government have completely lost touch with reality. We are not buying this bullshit again, from the bullshit "WMD" excuse used to go to war with Iraq to the conspicuously missing pictures of Bin Laden ( the U.S. had no problem with proudly displaying Saddam's sons Uday and Qusay as if they were a science fair exhibit! ).

I'm not the majority, but I have read about Operation Ajax. Yeah, I'm American, and I sorta think that we are special, and I like making money, yada yada yada. But, I can't justify what happened with Ajax. We destroyed a legitimate democracy, for the sake of a few cents per barrel of oil.

If I were Iranian, or Persian, or even Arabic, I'd be pretty pissed at the US too.

There is 0 incentive to fly into a territory to find radar sites *before* a conflict has started.

Au contraire, mon frer. Only gamblers, gluttons and losers go into a fight without assessing their opponent's strengths and weaknesses first. There is a tangible variance between capability and practice; Mismanagement, ignorance, misinformation, unknowns...

Whoever modded this insightful, hit yourself, and excuse yourself from any military-related discussion. You are either utterly stupid, or utterly ignorant, and in both cases, you have no place in a discussion like this beyond asking "how does this work?".

Aerial surveillance, especially low altitude aerial surveillance is of CRUCIAL importance. You cannot see things like tunnel network entrances, weapon caches, small defence emplacements and so on with high altitude surveillance from U2 and satellites when they are properly concealed against it. And with that surveillance being in existence for decades, countries like Iran have long perfected such camouflaging. What looks like a natural hill to a satellite becomes a hidden pillbox full of anti-armor weaponry when photographed from an angle. What looks like a bunch of civilian trucks becomes a mobile radar site. What looks like a mobile radar site becomes a fake transmitters designed to attract HARMs. Etc. Fake "weapon systems" designed specifically to fool satellite surveillance are something of a Russian speciality.

If you don't believe it, look at end of cold war. USSR army size has been throught to be about 40% greater then it really was, because Red Army perfected techniques for faking weapon systems specifically for satellite and U2 surveillance. If there was a war, most of the first strike would end up hitting wooden models and balloons that look like weapons while real weapons would be hidden in bunkers and emplacements that look like natural hills to a satellite. That is what drones are for - exact mapping rather then general one you do with a satellite/U2 sweep.

There is 0 incentive to fly into a territory to find radar sites *before* a conflict has started.

Ah, no. False. 100% False.

Mapping radar ahead of time is very cost effective. There is no point is shooting a HARM at a remote radar towed behind a truck to some god forsaken mountain side with no coms to any air defense sites, and then losing aircraft approaching their targets to Radars that were there all along but turned on at the last possible instant. You want to know ahead of time which radars you need to kill and which are decoys.

What ever fools marked the parent as insightful, Thank You: for staying in your Mom's basement and not joining the Military.

This is bullshit. We have been patrolling enemy countries for their SAM and radar sites since the Cold War. Even stealth aircraft can be seen on radar, and their flight paths have to be routed around radar sites. When the First Gulf War was initiated, the first shots were fired by Apache helicopters that infiltrated Iraqi airspace by flying low altitude then blowing up a radar site. Perimeter air defenses are blown up by cruise missiles and the like to permit stealth aircraft to fly in and blow up other air

Yes, your memory has hazed over a little bit. It took weeks before all of Iraq's radar sites were eliminated. That, in spite of the fact that we had already painted them in the runup to the war. Month after month, we flew into Iraqi territory, recording everything we could, including the locations of radar installations. Still, when the war started, mobile radar units had been moved, and some of the stationary units hadn't ever been mapped.

Military intelligence changes daily, if not hourly. You've got to stay on top of things, or your intel is shit.

Which is why you keep having to send subsequent missions in and re-map them. There is such a thing as an ideal site for radar, and you can't just pack these things up and go at a moment's notice. You have to shut down, pack up, move, unpack, realign their systems, perform a baseline scan of the environment to compare with, and link back into the rest of the network. They do this in staggered pattern over several weeks, so as to not leave any gaps in the coverage. If you have everyone move the moment the

But if we're a net exporter of petroleum products, and coal, then what energy sources are we importing so much of that it changes the balance to make us into a net importer of energy overall?

The U.S. is a net importer of petroleum. The U.S. is a net exporter of refined petroleum products. Why is that? We have a huge refining industry - thus we don't need anyone's refined petroleum, whereas we can import oil, refine it, and reexport the products at a profit. The U.S. import about 4.5 barrels of crude oil for each barrel of refined petroleum exported.

Why is it that USA thinks it can push other countrys around so much? They are in everybodys face, from Europe on copyrights to violating the sovereign territory of many countries with airstrikes that kill innocents to drones.

Iran will sell this drone to China, I'm sure. The world needs China as a counterbalance to the aggression of the USA. It's better to have 2 superpowers than just one which can do whatever it pleases. If China is there to push back against usa, usa won't be able to cause so many probs anymore.

After all, the PRC would never invade any of its neighbors. Not Vietnam, not Korea, not India, not Russia, not Tibet. And they certainly wouldn't make constant menacing gestures against ROC-Taiwan or Japan...

The PRC is hated by every one of its neighbors except Pakistan and North Korea, which are pretty much rogue states.

He made a mistake, which can be easily corrected with some re-education.

Tibet was always part of China, so technically, they did not invade another country. The military only turned up because they heard that the scenery was particularly pretty, most especially at sunrise.

The US does such things because it benefits the US. Having the strongest military and being a keystone of the world economy affords one the ability to do so with near impunity. Historically, the US has never been subservient to a supernational organization, and the US serves itself, not the world.

IOW, it's difficult to compare the US to other countries. Economically, the GDP of the US sits at $14.5 trillion, compared to China's $5.9, Japan's $5.5, and Germany's $3.3. The whole European Union is compa

China's not in good shape either. The EU is bumming and the Euro is tottering on falling apart. All those spare troops in Afghanistan and Iraq need something to do.

WW3 could be on its way. The Afghanis need to decide whose side they're on, and so do the Pakistanis. Israel, who has lots of trouble making friends, will be wondering what to do. The Saudis will try to keep the peace by carrying a big stick, but that'll probably backfire.

My guess: the drone business goes away. Iraq needed to crow about something

I hope not. Yet I'm an old man. I've been watching wars develop for a long time. It's not a shrug, it's a feeling like: we've been here before, and it could get ugly, quickly, with a lot of loss of life.

Speaking of living in the past, the Arabs have been fighting among each other for a thousand years with no signs of relent. Somehow, Turkey managed to divest itself of that and join the modern world. The only time they other Arab states manage to unite is when they decide to get whipped up on by Israel.

We had an opportunity to be their friends/ally after the Russians left but we didn't.

You didn't have such an opportunity. You were not supporting all Afghanis to begin with - you were supporting the anti-secular Islamic faction that was fighting the secular government put in place by the Soviets and its supporters. Simply put, it was a civil war, triggered by Soviet intervention which supported the communist faction, and continued by U.S. and Pakistan which supported Islamists.

Islamists tolerated you infidels because you were providing them with weapons and training that were crucial in the fight. When they kicked out the Soviets and massacred the local communists together, extremists (Taliban) turned onto more moderate Islamists (what later became Northern Alliance) and pushed them out of most of the country.

At no time the fight was about "democracy", "freedom", or other such nonsense. It was about whether it'd be a secular dictatorship aligned with Soviets, or an Islamic theocracy not aligned with them. Both would hate your guts. Your politicians just assumed that the latter would be easier to deal with, because it was not, back then, so prominent - not enemy #1.

I have a question in your mind which would have been easier to deal with, the religious zealots or the communist?

Easier for whom?:)

On a more serious side, obviously, so long as USSR remained in the game, Afghanistan would be aligned to it - meaning Soviet military bases on Pakistani border (and a Soviet-friendly India on the other side... it's precisely why Pakistan helped mujahideen so much, they had a lot at stake in that conflict!). On the other hand, given what Pakistan is today, perhaps it wouldn't be such a bad thing.

After USSR collapsed, though, commies in Afghanistan were destined to fall either way. It would have taken longer if U.S. didn't support mujahideen, but Pakistan support alone would be quite enough to wrap it up eventually. Maybe if someone took out Pakistan, then there was some hope for Afghanistan as a viable sovereign state which wouldn't be a theocracy...

For Afghanis themselves, I think Soviet Afghanistan would have been better in the long run. Soviets actually heavily invested in Afghani infrastructure, even before propping up communinsts - building roads and railroads, factories, hydro dams etc. Here [defenceforumindia.com] is a list, though I won't vouch for its correctness. When they had a puppet government in place, they've also started funneling money for the latter to build schools, hospitals and the like, to increase popular support (ironically, this actually generated some resentment in more conservative parts of the country, because Soviet-trained professionals often deliberately stomped on local values - e.g. a male doctor inspecting a female patient, or boys and girls studying together in schools).

Needless to say, most of it all went to hell under Taliban. Given the choice between a dictatorship that actually works on building up the country's economy and raising its standard of living, and a dictatorship that's mainly busy ensuring that all women cover their faces and preparing for Armageddon, I think the rational choice is pretty obvious.

China has too few of those to go to the mat with the USA. Russia exaggerates the number of active warheads it can maintain, has half that of the USA.

If you can reliably deliver even 20 warheads to the US on a second strike, you've got more than enough to keep even the most hawkish of politicians or generals from wanting to get into a nuclear slugging match.

I mean I thought the whole idea is you send in unmanned drones to do a dangerous mission because losing a drone is preferable to losing a pilot.(Then again you'd hope the technology on the drone wouldn't be too advanced so the enemy doesn't get much out of shooting one down.)

For instance, Iran has been training and supplying people to fight in Iraq against US troops.

This is just propaganda BS, I've seen stories like this ripped to pieces. Think about it, Iran was at war with Iraq just a couple of decades ago, it's highly unlikely they'd be helping out the same people after 500,000 to 1,000,000 Iranians died fighting them.

For instance, Iran has been training and supplying people to fight in Iraq against US troops.

Not really. Most of the people fighting US troops in Iraq were Sunni (Saddam, his Ba'ath Party and his military were mostly Sunni). The present governments of Iraq and Iran are both Shia and are closely allied (no doubt to the annoyance of the US)... removing the Ba'ath Party from power and installing a Shia government was a great move for Iran. There are even allegations that it was Iranian intelligence that tricked the U.S. into invading Iraq through the use of double agents and false intel: US intelligence fears Iran duped hawks into Iraq war [guardian.co.uk]:

Some intelligence officials now believe that Iran used the hawks in the Pentagon and the White House to get rid of a hostile neighbour, and pave the way for a Shia-ruled Iraq... "It's pretty clear that Iranians had us for breakfast, lunch and dinner," said an intelligence source in Washington yesterday. "Iranian intelligence has been manipulating the US for several years through Chalabi.".... "When the story ultimately comes out we'll see that Iran has run one of the most masterful intelligence operations in history. They persuaded the US and Britain to dispose of its greatest enemy."

"The revelation raises questions about whether Iran may have used a small cabal of officials in the Pentagon and in Vice President Dick Cheney's office to feed bogus intelligence on Iraq and Iran to senior policymakers in the Bush administration who were eager to oust the Iraqi dictator.
Iran, which was a mortal enemy of Iraqi dictator Saddam Hussein and fought a bloody eight-year war with Iraq during his reign, has been the primary beneficiary of U.S. policy in Iraq, where Iranian-backed groups now run much of the government and the security forces."

Yes, forbidden; airspace [wikipedia.org], air sovereignty [wikipedia.org]: "By international law, the notion of a country's sovereign airspace corresponds with the maritime definition of territorial waters as being 12 nautical miles (22.2 km) out from a nation's coastline. Airspace not within any country's territorial limit is considered international, analogous to the "high seas" in maritime law. "

Just because something happens, does not mean that it is legal. See for example: underage drinking.

The problem with this is that those drones have encrypted radios and if they didn't get wiped in time closely guarded encryption keys. The radio has a remote-detonate so it should be OK but there's still a lot of other tech on that drone that we really don't want Iran getting it's hands on - not to mention China to whome it was likely sold.

Maybe Iran is getting ready to provoke a war, and knowing this, they are claiming a 3rd drone, even though they have not shown proof of any of them, so that after they provoke a conflict, and drones are used during said conflict, they can pick one up later as proof of the 3 as-of-yet unsubstantiated claims they have already made.

Sure. Or maybe the US violated a sovereign state's airspace and had their aircraft shot down. Looking at both countries' track records for provoking armed conflicts through blatant disregard for international law the latter somehow seems the more likely theory.

Okay. So by your logic, its alright if I develop a nuclear bomb in my garage. And if my neighbors complain, and the police arrest me and shut me down for violating any number of laws, then the neighbors and the police are the aggressors ?

Iran is the one developing nuclear weapons in the neighborhood garage, against international laws, verified by international committees, and subject to international sanctions. That makes Iran the bad guy, not the international community for doing something about it.

Iran is the one developing nuclear weapons in the neighborhood garage, against international laws, verified by international committees, and subject to international sanctions. That makes Iran the bad guy, not the international community for doing something about it.

Actually Iran has signed the NPT and been verified in compliance with that treaty over and over again. Even the latest IAEA report continues to show them in compliance with their NPT obligations. They have no bomb, they have diverted no uranium, and the very worst accusation that has any credible evidence behind it is that they may be interested in developing the necessary technology so that they *could*, should they decide to do so later, develop a nuclear bomb relatively quickly. This ' break-out capability' is something that many other nations have and have had for years - Japan for instance reached this point many years ago, and should they ever decide to develop the bomb they could do it quickly. There is no obligation in international law or treaty for Iran to refrain from this, it is not in violation of the NPT, and many other countries have the same capability without anyone making an issue of it.

Iran signed the NPT as a non-nuclear power and has so far complied with it. They are regularly inspected and the inspectors have always found them in compliance, even in recent years after those inspectors have been thoroughly politicised and clearly aimed at finding the opposite. By comparison, the US signed the NPT as a nuclear power, which exempts it from those intrusive inspections (which we know the US government would never allow.) The obligations of a nuclear power under the NPT however are clear and the US is in constant violation, both in failing to pursue nuclear disarmament and in blatantly co-operating with nations that have not acceded to the NPT in their pursuit of nuclear weapons. Both Israel and India are non-NPT powers that have developed nuclear weapons with US assistance in blatant violation of the US obligations under the NPT. So the fact is that Iran has been playing by the rules and getting punished for it, while they watched their potentially hostile neighbors developing nuclear weapons in open defiance of those rules and being rewarded for it. Under the circumstances it doesnt seem possible for any fair-minded observer to conclude that the primary problem here is on their end.

I dont like the mullahs anymore than anyone else, but blatant war propaganda is still blatant war propaganda and fair is still fair. This dishonest demonisation of Iran and blatantly dishonest and unfair dealing with them doesnt harm the mullahs - in fact it helps them. The Iranian democratic opposition groups who the US claims to support are weakened with every rattle of the sabre. Threats of war, particularly ones based on such blatant dishonesty and double standards as are on display in this case, simply help unite the populace behind their current rulers and work to prevent democratic revolution in Iran, the only long-term solution to the problem of the mullahs.

Actually, the present Iranian government never signed the NPT. Their predecessors, the Shah dictatorship, signed, but they got overthrown by the revolution. Treaties signed by the Shah are not legally binding on a government that disposed of him (after the U.S. revolted against British rule, did the treaties of the British government still apply to the U.S.? Obviously not.)

Hello, I dont know what planet you are on, but here on planet earth the US has been threatening Iran regularly for many years. Both with words, and with acts (of war) as well. This goes back at least to 1953, when the CIA overthrew the democratically elected government of Iran and installed the Shah. In 1979 they overthrew this dictator and the US has been both threatening them and committing acts of war against them constantly ever since. During the 80s we encouraged and supported Saddam Hussein in his brutal war against Iran. In 1987, and again in '88, the US launched direct attacks on Iran, sinking naval vessels and destroying infrastructure. Also in '88, the US shot down a civilian Iranian airliner killing nearly 300 civilians. The US has never apologised for this attack.

In the early 90s it looked like relations might finally be normalised, but in '95 sanctions were imposed by the US and relations quickly and predictably deteriorated as a result. By 2002 we have GW Bush publicly labelling Iran part of the 'axis of evil' and threatening them very publicly. Since 2003 the US government has acknowledged that it routinely violates Iranian airspace with surveillance flights, and also that it is engaged in covert operations inside Iran, primarily to encourage and support separatist groups. Even as recently as earlier in the week, Obama administration officials have not only continued Bush's policies in this regard, but also his bellicose talk. Each administration in turn has made it a point to announce that they would not rule out a nuclear first strike against non-nuclear Iran!

So it's really laughable ignorance, at best, for you to claim the US never threatened Iran. If you are looking for bias you need to go find a mirror rather than trying to project it on me.

So far as whether they actually captured a drone as they say, on that and that alone you are correct. They are perfectly capable of fabricating the incident. But given that the US has admitted to running just the kind of operation they claim to have intercepted, and running them regularly since 2003 at least, the claim is hardly an incredible one. Regardless of the truth about this incident, we know the US regularly invades their airspace in this manner because the US government has admitted the fact.

'Through 2008, the United States repeatedly refused to rule out using nuclear weapons in an attack on Iran. The U.S. Nuclear Posture Review made public in 2002 specifically envisioned the use of nuclear weapons on a first strike basis, even against non-nuclear armed states.[181] Investigative reporter Seymour Hersh reported that, according to military officials, the Bush administration had plans for the use of nuclear weapons against "underground Iranian nuclear facilities".[182] When specifically question

I'm not sure you understand what "sovereignty" means.It means if you have your own country, it's your garage, not anyone elses.

Nobody lives in this world alone, we all have neighbors. Iran's neighbors include the rest of the world.

There are limits as to what you can do in *your* "garage", and those limits are what ever the majority of your neighbors say you can do. Your neighbors have banded together and decided that you can not build and operate a meth lab in your garage. Beyond the public policy about drugs, operating a meth lab is dangerous not just to the operators but also the neighbors. There are laws, and you can't do it.

Iran's neighbors - the rest of the world - have decided that certain activities related to building nuclear bombs is not allowable. No amount of "sovereignty" changes this. No amount of blather from Libertarian Tea Baggers changes this.

Nuclear bomb building is not allowed.

Eliminating Iran's ability to build nukes will make the world a safer place. Sooner or later, things *will* come to a head, and Iran will have to be dealt with, and it's likely to involve military action.

Not saying this is what's happening, but there's a tactic of probing an enemy's air defenses to get them to switch on the radars they've been keeping hidden so you won't know to bomb them when the war starts.

I seriously doubt it. IF THIS IS TRUE, I suspect that this was actually in Afhgnistan and Iran or taliban were able to hijack control of it and push it into Iranian territory. As it is, Iran has claimed before that they had one and it was shown to be false. Personally, I tend to trust what comes out of AQ, as well as Al Jazerra, when it comes to reporting what we did, but Iran is whole other issue. They are constant liars.

It seems like there has been some effort from the US to further increase tensions with Iran - including a string of three catastrophic, improbable but still officially accidental explosions at various Iranian industrial facilities. Add that to Stuxnet and targeted assassinations of Iran's brightest nerds, and it paints a pretty clear picture that we the West are trying to ratchet up tensions. On the other side, there are probably hardliners who are happy to play along. I don't like any of this escalation.

It seems like there has been some effort from the US to further increase tensions with Iran - including a string of three catastrophic, improbable but still officially accidental explosions at various Iranian industrial facilities. Add that to Stuxnet and targeted assassinations of Iran's brightest nerds, and it paints a pretty clear picture that we the West are trying to ratchet up tensions. On the other side, there are probably hardliners who are happy to play along. I don't like any of this escalation.

My guess covert US involvement is at least partially to keep Isreal from feeling soo cornered it sees no alternative other than a unilateral strike against Iran.

For all practical purposes Isreal == USA. If they do something stupid we pay the price for cleanup / consequences.

other news sites are reporting this to like the ap. plus googling the name of the type of drone downed makes this even more interesting since it's one based off the stealthy 'flying wing' b2 bomber....

he doesn't know anyone in iran, he doesn't know any iranians, he just spent the weekend playing 'call of duty' and masturbating, but goddamnit, he knows foreign policy. and the number one thing we need to do is to violate the laws of war (which he calls 'faggot laws') and put weapons of mass destruction into a country without any formal declaration of war, congressional debate, etc.

because, after all, they shot down one of our robots.

WindBourne can be found during days at his job as a Wal Mart security guard, where he protects us from terrorists by body slamming grandfathers face-first into the concrete floor because they "resist arrest".

Probably it has a full bag of USB sticks loaded with the latest SCADA worms lol

Now this is an interesting Trojan strategy - fly RC Planes, er, drones, around annoying foreign country. Have specialized Stuxnet-type software embedded in the plane. Have annoying foreign country shoot down RC plane and try to disassemble it to gain secrets.

ZAP! You've been pawned.

Wouldn't be all that hard. If this actually happened there are going to be dozens of people just aching to open the thing up. First one to find the JTAG connector wins a prize!

I am driven with a mission from God. God would tell me, 'George go and fight these terrorists in Afghanistan'. And I did. And then God would tell me 'George, go and end the tyranny in Iraq'. And I did. ~ George Bush